Pseudo-Oneness

A Course in Miracles teaches that the personal mind insists on your complete independence, not just from God, but from others as well. It is threatened by any kind of joining, even with other personal selves, because there’s always the threat that you will break through your perception of separation and become aware that you are not limited to a personal self. But you long for Oneness, or Love, because your True Nature is Oneness in God, not a limited personal self. So the personal mind has had to concoct its own version of ‘love’, which allows you temporary moments of connectedness, but which overall reinforces your sense of separation and guilt. A couple of ways that longing for True Love shows up is in one’s desire to ‘belong’, even if only to one other or a small family; or to be a ‘part of something bigger’, in organizations like churches, the military, corporations, etc. This ‘belonging’, though, is a poor substitute for the Oneness of God, Which is Limitless and Eternal, so it inevitably fails.

There are other forms of artificial ‘oneness’ that the personal mind has concocted to keep you distracted from seeking out True Oneness, as well. For example, I recently finished reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. It was an entertaining thriller, full of a lot of the usual Dan Brown mix of thrills, mystery, symbology, and history. If you intend to read it, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil anything here. Interestingly, this book brings forth many quotes from the world’s various spiritual practices that refer to God as within you, rather than as something over you. It even says outright that ‘made in God’s image’ refers to mind, not body, but then it refers to the mind as in the brain! Of course, as part of the body, which is in the mind, the brain is in the mind, too; it is not the other way around. The Lost Symbol’s message is that your mind is far more powerful than you realize, and that Noetics, which is the study of ‘mind-over-matter’ is revealing spiritual truths, including how everything is interconnected on an unseen level. Physics, too, seems to bear this out. But the Oneness of God is not the oneness of matter. God is Formless Being, not one form that takes many forms. God cannot be measured, as matter and energy can, because God has no form and no limits. God is Spirit, and cannot be found in the physical universe, which was made to be the opposite of God in every way. And it is not the purpose of mind to have power over anything; the Purpose of Mind is to be.

The personal mind has to do something with your true longing for God, so it makes substitutes that temporarily appease and distract you, and that validate separation-from-God-as-reality to perpetuate itself. But God is found within you, and nowhere in the world. When you go within and touch God, God extends into your perception of the world, but you cannot ‘prove’ God through the world, because God did not make the world, and God has nothing at all to do with the world. By learning that you can change your perception, you learn that your mind is the mind behind your perception of the world, and that your mind is not limited to a personal self, but this does not make you matter or one with matter. In fact, ‘matter’ is just an idea in your mind, too. It is in your mind, but it is an erroneous idea, so you can never be ‘one’ with it. You are One with God’s Formless Being. To know this again, you have to open your mind to experiences of ‘mind’ and ‘oneness’ that cannot be conceptualized by a personal mind.

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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.

Comments

janet said…
Hi Liz,

The Purpose of Mind is to be." This is so truly and beautifully stated. Thank you.

When you say we're not "one with matter" I get confused though.

Our Truth of Being is formless - I understand that. And we arise here in "form" through our perceptions (thought, ego).

I think back to the Buddha's teaching: “The leaf and our body are one. Neither possesses a separate, permanent self. Neither exists independently from the rest of the universe. Seeing this independent nature of everything he saw the empty nature of everything. He saw all things empty of a separate isolated self.” (Old Path White Clouds, Thich Nhat Hanh).

This can be confusing in that it seems like our body is ‘one with all matter’, but then we need to recognize it’s all in the dream world and not really there anyway.

And then Eckart Tolle says so beautifully, I’m paraphrasing, ‘The universe is a beautiful jewel.’ As if itself it is its own being. Again, a body, but not really there anyway.

So could we say we only perceive all this matter simply as symbols to teach us that only God is Real?

In love and peace,
Janet
Hal Seeley said…
Janet asks the question, "So could we say we only perceive all this matter simply as symbols to teach us that only God is Real?"

As we perceive this universe, this world, this computer, we are now all aware of the fact that it all disintegrates over time. Just where does it all go? Science has attempted to answer this question for hundreds of years. They refer to this place as “The Unified Field Theory”. They have built atom smashers of incredible size and complexity in an attempt to break down matter to find the last thing that cannot be broken down any further. In other words, the hair that cannot be split any further.

The smaller we go the bigger things seem to be because as we get closer to the thing that holds all things together we begin to see the infinite mind of ourselves. Digging deeper and deeper into the smallness of the atom’s world we eventually break out into the infinite universe only to find there is no smallness. This happens because we find that there is no end to splitting the hair. I remember a riddle from my childhood that went something like this. If we want to cross the room and get to the other side and we are only allowed to go one half the distance, and then half of that distance, continuing to go half the distance, how long will it take to get to the other side? It doesn’t take long to realize that we will never reach the other side. This is because we are attempting to halve a distance being projected in a dream, which has no reality, does not exist, and is just an exercise of our ego attempting to make the dream real. In this simple riddle that confuses the ego as it tries to get to the other side of the room, we come to realize there is no room, because the room begins to vanish as we visualize halving the distance into infinity.

So as we perceive the disintegration of matter we are actually seeing our thoughts, our projections, as we create what is perceived as matter, come and go in our mind. The Buddha’s enlightenment was this very realization as he came to know this is all an illusion.
hannah said…
ok, awesome. this line 'A couple of ways that longing for True Love shows up is in one’s desire to ‘belong’ just took the guilt factor out of what ive been going on about all over your blogs tonight liz! the fact that you said the other day 'But do you see that trying to get to unconditional love is also trying to change yourself?' is helpful too right now. of course i long for the feeling of sharing and joining, of course the ego is going to seek for it where it cant be found. of course im going to enjoy it where it does seem to be found on some level of the egos searching. of course im going to keep reaching for the TRUTH of it. lol.. no wonder you sometimes get called ruth ;)

the higher miracle dream took me right to the edge of this 'But the Oneness of God is not the oneness of matter. God is Formless Being, not one form that takes many forms'. the one light that 'made up all things' started to fade away. oh liz, boy do i want to know that fear isnt real. all the stuff ive been working through tonight, and suddenly im crying, scared, lonely. ashamed of the dramatics, understanding them.. so confused and trusting. feeling so far along, and knowing im no where near peace. full of contradictions.. and humour at it all. i feel somewhat mad tonight. i keep remembering you writing 'I always say your relationship with others is your relationship with yourself.' so i dont really want to apologise to you.. but to myself! im GLAD you dont need apologies.. its very encouraging!

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